Six of Hearts
by Titan16
Summary: A collection of rather depressing drabbles, centered around Agent Six.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer-Nope, not mine.**

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_Moverundon'tstopmovemove__**move**_, just keep _running_, running for familiar _[manipulative]_ green eyes and cheerful _[worried]_ blue. Run to home_ [hell]_, run from your captors_ [parents]_, who search and see, who don't stop and hurt _[cherish]_ you.

Run from death _[peace]_; run from the bullets _[revenge]._ Run from pain _[punishment]_ and execution _[which is a mercy, and it really shouldn't be but it_ is-_-]_. Run and run and run and _never stop_.

If you do, you'll never see the friendly _[jealous]_ faces of your coworkers, your comrades _[competitors]_. You'll never hear the praise _[for killing, for being a_ _monster, for being_ yourself_]_. Don't stop because then they'll know you _[they think they do but they don't, they_ can't_, because they're still_ there-_-]_

Run from your broken _[reflected]_ sister, who looks at you and is blind _[to everyone but you, because looking at her is like looking at a mirror, and it hurts, hurts more than taking your next step-]_. Run from her lies_ [truths],_ from her pain _[understanding]_, run and run and _run._

Run to your enthusiastic _[observant]_ brother, who can't really see but wants_ [needs]_ to, who you welcome _[shun]. _Who you want to live forever _[or at least longer than you, which hopefully won't be much-],_ who is always there, and always will be _[until he isn't]._

Run to your father _[handler],_ who loves _[uses]_ you. Run to him as you did when you were young _[innocent],_ and knew _[thought]_ he would protect you. Run to him and if you get there fast enough _[you won't, because you never, never do] _maybe he'll reward _[punish]_ you.

Run to your loving _[wary]_ girlfriend, who loves_ [as much as the next person]_ you, who touches _[tortures]_, who heals _[hurts]_, who never _[always]_ judges you.

Run for an _eternity._

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**Not sure about this one. It's kinda dark, even for me. Review anyway?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Discliamer-Not mine. And just to warn you, this isn't just dark, but graphic as well. Consider yourself warned.**

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_Splinters dig into his bare back, hot little pinpricks of pain, like stars slowly dying out, _oh, please no, they're really going to_, while the rope rubs his wrists raw, until blood, red as the dry, burning wood under him, drips down to land in the already large puddles under him, and the smoke creeps up his lungs, thick and heavy and _oh god, he can't breathe can't think cant, cant, cant—_The heat moves up his body in thick, fat waves, scorching his skin red and making him wonder if the flames have finally reached him, if he is simply too insane to tell anymore. __But _oh, oh god_, it hits, and burns, and the smoke is nonexistent now but that doesn't matter, not anymore, because, the pain, the _pain_, hot and burning and _please, anybody, make it stop_, __takes his breath away until black spots dance in front of his eyes, but he stays awake, _please, somebody kill him already,_ he doesn't pass out even as his flesh melts off his bones, landing in loud, heavy drips on the already bloody concrete. The flames lick slowly up his body—_

Six jerks awake, screaming. He retches, and flips over on his hands and knees to purge himself of his meager diner.

It does little to stop the tremors wracking his lithe frame.

He had these nightmares very rarely, but when he did, they were _horrible_. They were never the same, the only similarity the fact that they were forms of torture from before Takeover. Ways he had only ever read of in books.

Six shoved himself roughly up, and went to clean up his mess.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer- Nope, The Lab _still_ isn't mine.**

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"I don't know why I keep coming here," Nai admits on her seventh visit.

_{Six thinks she's being deliberately obtuse. Of course she knows why she comes – she comes to him because her victory is empty, because Six gave up the game much too early, and she needs to crack his bones between her teeth and suck the marrow before she'll be even remotely satisfied with her 'win'}_

"Why won't you _talk?_"

A flush of dark amusement swirls in his chest when Six hears how animalistic her voice is becoming.

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His wrists are heavy with the weight of the manacles on her twentieth visit, forcing his once proud posture to stoop. Nai circles him like she would a particularly fascinating kill, muscles twisting and jerking under her skin like they want to rip the other experiment open_{to taste the blood, to kill, to shred, to_ avenge_}_ as much as he does.

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Blood drips {_pouring red, screaming and gurgling and_ oh, god, they killed them _all_} to the floor on her thirty-fifth visit, creating flowers the deep, rich colour of love. It drains in rivers whenever they wash the cage, _{it had once been thin strings of red hanging off of his body, like the ribbons Kyntak used to put in his captors baby-thin hair, flakes of ruby dissolving over the rough metal}_ clots the only stars in his black, midnight world.

He sees Nai's control slip, watches as her fists start clenching, as her teeth begin grinding, tracks the red as it slowly creeps up her throat. Head still, Six follows her with his eyes, refusing to glance either down or away from his only sister.

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When she leaps at him on her fifty-second visit, body moving and slamming into Six with a loud _crack_, her gun is at his head, and he does not flinch.

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On her eightieth visit, Six finally speaks, baring his still-perfect teeth _{words heavy with the taste of anger and hatred and something he can no longer quite name}_ for the first time in fifteen months.

"Because you killed my family, you _bitch_."

Nai's eyes widen several millimeters in surprise.

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On her one hundredth visit, Six _{rope the colour of a sun that no longer exists, burning and thick and deadly}_ finally wins.

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**They just keep getting darker and darker, don't they? I think it's kinda OOC, at least on Six's part, but he_ was_ imprisoned/tortured for over a year... Anyway, if anybody was confused, just review or PM me and I'll try to do a prequel drabble.**

**Thanks to _President Zaphod Beeblebrox_, Cassey11, and Anonymous for reviewing!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer-Not mine.**

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He'd been about to break, Nai knew. It had been obvious in his shaking, in how he had no longer given more than token resistance as they tortured him. It had been in the fact that he had slept readily; no longer fighting his exhaustion or the nightmares.

How she'd looked forward to it, the silent, stubborn _idiot_ spilling his secrets the way he spilled his blood, thick and ready and _easy_ for the taking.

She knew that the ones pertaining to the Deck were worthless, now that she had destroyed it, but the ones about Vanish, about his connections to Shuji, had potential to be useful.

That's what Father had told her, anyway.

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She traced his pale body with a blunt fingernail, looking at the deep, heavy cuts along his torso, the black bruises coating his arms, the thick burn around his throat.

Six was her only sibling left, she knew, having watched the other's blood flood out on the ground from a bullet to the throat. She suddenly realized that she had never really known his name.

Breathing in the reek of the morgue, she felt something foreign to her settle heavily in her chest, along with a bitter taste in the back of her throat.

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All the while, her eyes looked down at her enemy's body and thought it ironic that after avoiding death-avoiding _her-_ for so long, that he was the one to bring it upon himself.

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**Sorry this isn't the promised prequel, but there seemed to be more confusion about the rope thing than what had actually happend before, so I went ahead and made a sequel instead.**

**Thanks to Cassy11 and _President Zaphod Beeblebrox_ for reviewing!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer-Agent Six isn't mine.**

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Six was back in the medical area. His hands shook, tremors racing up and down his entire body, so he gripped the bar running along the side of the bed, using it to support himself. Kyntak was asleep now, probably a side effect of whatever he'd been on earlier, in surgery. As Six looked down on his lax face, he realized, and not for the first time, how similar they were.

In appearance, at least.

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Some time later, hearing a small sound, Six turned to see Ace behind him.

"That's quite the outfit." She murmured, raising an eyebrow. "You need some help?" Six blinked, looking down.

He had come in from his mission hours ago, and he saw, through a haze of exhaustion, the long, deep cut on his arm, covered in blood so thoroughly dried it was almost black, matching the bruises blossoming along every inch of exposed skin. And of course, he still had to change out of his dirt encrusted clothes, or discard his weapons.

He realized that, to an outside source, he looked like he'd taken on a small army, which was, really, what he had done.

After a short silence, Six looked back up and said, "I suppose so."

Ace snorted, muttering, _"Suppose."_

Six didn't bother to remind her that he had much better hearing than normal humans.

He swallowed back his exhaustion, trying to take a step toward her, away from Kyntak and the support of his bed. Ace tilted her head, stepping forward.

"Are you—" She started as Six collapsed, completely out of the last reserves of his strength.

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His head hit her shoulder as she caught him, and he buried his head into her hair as her arms circled around his chest.

Agent Six of Hearts slowly sunk into darkness, surrounded by the stench of antiseptic and the blood of his brother.

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**So, I updated this before my actual, y'know, _story_. Trust me, I'm as shocked as you are. I have the next chapter all planed out, but the actual _words_ aren't coming quite as eaisly. But heres the last piece of fiction I'll produce for awhile, today being the last break in what I refer to as 'real life' I'll get for some time. **

**Please review!**

**Thanks a bunch to _President Zaphod Beeblebrox _and Cassey11_ for_ reviewing!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer-Not mine! **

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Six had always felt … differently than other people. The strongest emotions—love, hate, fear—affected him _differently_ somehow.

He supposed it had to do with his upbringing, in part—always hiding meant not drawing attention to yourself, not growing_ attached_- and also because he'd ignored them so long under the self-deluded pretense that he wasn't human.

Even now, living with Kyntak, King, and his almost-friends at work, he found it hard to simply feel all that _angry_. Love, loyalty, yes, but anger, _anger _just wasn't in him.

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Sure he'd see red if he opened his eyes, Agent Six of Hearts screams through gritted teeth, chest heaving up hot, boiling tears. He spins on his heel, slamming a fist _[one that has been made for days and days and_ days_]_ into the wall.

The pain is distant, like the small crunch that accompanies it. He stills, body tense, panting and screaming and if he moves an inch, he's sure he'd explode.

The tang of blood, salty and metallic and familiar, so horribly, horribly familiar floods his mouth as he slides down the wall, shuddering, literally biting off his sobs, his plaintive cries of _why?_

_[why now, why did he have to find his anger _now, _whywhy_why_]_

As blood pours down his lips, splashing down to form little spots of red, he thinks of a girl, so young and yet so old, with feathery hair and stubborn morals, who looked at him as if from a mirror, and he screams, _why?_

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**Fortunately/unfortunately, I sprained my shoulder, giving me enough time to crank this out from my sickbed. More should follow in about a week.**

**Thanks to Cassey11 and _President Zaphod Beeblebrox_ for reviewing!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer- NO! SIX ISN'T MINE!**

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Six stared at the piano. Jack—who was, he thought irritably, late. _Again_- had moved it to the makeup room when Three had needed to freshen up his 'mad-skills' for a mission. Six's fingers twitched, and he paced slowly over to the bench.

When he was small, only two or three years old, King had had a piano, a complete opposite of this one. It had been a small, brown, thing that had to be tuned constantly, sometimes during compositions themselves, just to hold the right notes.

Six had absolutely _loved_ it.

He'd loved the small, black blots of ink coating the paper like freckles, loved how, if you looked closer, and knew how to read them, they formed music, which was almost like a language of its own.

Six seated himself at the new piano, ran his fingers over the perfectly white keys, which had not a spot on them, nor scratches of well-loved use.

Six recalled the day_ his_ piano had gone missing. He'd run to King, looked desperately up at him, and tried to act unaffected as his pseudo-father looked blankly down at him, and informed him that since a soul hadn't used it in years, he'd thrown it away. As Six had cried himself to sleep that night, he had reminded himself that King hadn't known about his playing, _couldn't_ _have_, because he'd never been around to hear Six's playing, never saw him struggle to hold himself correctly, to arch his slender fingers, never heard him slam keys down as he missed a note, never saw him accidently crack a one _{D sharp}_ in silent frustration.

King couldn't have known he'd wanted to play in front of huge crowds, dressed in a tuxedo like the men in the old, pre-Takeover movies Six had watched while King was at work. Couldn't have known that spying, that being an _agent_, was the second role he'd longed to play.

_{King couldn't have known, because Six had a soul. _Right?_}_

Six forced the memory down, and tentatively pushed a key. The low, deep note rang clearly across the room, just like the music he'd studied,and so _un_like that little, tuneless piano that he'd adored so much.

Taking a deep breath, Six launched into the middle of one of his favorite pieces, composed pre-Takeover by Liszt. He closed his eyes, and let his head tip back, knowing his fingers could play the notes by memory.

He listened to the music, notes floating up, deep tones layering, blending, mixing until he could barely tell the difference between them anymore. The higher notes came in, seeds scattered over a field, sharp and heavy, ripping into the mix, until they dissolved, barely distinguishable from the rest. Suddenly, Six was smaller, tiny hands barely reaching the keys in time to keep in time with the music, struggling to read the sheets of paper he'd printed out in his room.

Six was so caught up in the music, in the _memories_, that he didn't register Jack's presence until he sat next to him.

The music cut off abruptly. Six stared at Jack, silently waiting for him to say something. Nobody had heard him play _{they couldn't have, because he _knew, _now,_ _he had a soul, that he was _human_}_, and he felt a slight shiver of nervousness.

Jack simply stared back, mouth slightly open. Six's spine had gone stiff, and he went to take his fingers from the bright, new keys, when Jack said, "What are you _doing?_"

Six raised an eyebrow, lifting himself up. "Playing the piano?" He answered drily.

Jack narrowed his eyes, giving him a_ look_. "_Really?_ I couldn't tell. But _seriously_, I had no idea you could play, especially like _that!"_

Six shrugged, glancing away from Jacks's cheerful enthusiasm, and went to walk away. Jack grabbed his arm, stopping him. "Why'd you stop? We have time before your mission. Keep going!"

Six felt a slow grin tug at his mouth. He sat down again, and once again became immersed in the music.

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**Well, no idea where this came from. Review anyway?**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer-Not mine.**

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"I have _to_ kissed a girl before." Six says.

Kyntak glances down, blood dripping from his forehead. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." Six pants. His whole body feels heavy. He is weighed down, bones made of iron, blood of concrete. His eyes start to slip closed—

_And he is thirteen again. He holds a girl's -whose name he would later learn was Annie- hands tight enough to break the bones. Her bright green eyes had dulled, and he had long stopped begging her to stay awake. It was only his second mission, and his first time talking to somebody his own age. Bright red hair and her gut wound seemed to be competing for who could be a darker colour, until they mixed into something like black-_

A sudden increase of pain in his abdomen forces his eyes open. He focuses, and Kyntak's hand, covered in blood, comes into view. Through the lights sparkling in his vision, he squints, chest heaving. "Is somebody hurt?" he asks.

Six bunches his muscles under himself and pushes up off the floor, but finds he can't get up any higher. He forces out, "_Did you get hit, damn it—"_

_And her eyes, ones that had laughed at him to lighten up just minutes before, rolled towards him. "I've never kissed anyone before," she said suddenly, voice raspy and gurgling, blood dripping from her painted lips-_

His head smacks against the floor, hard. Kyntak's eyes widen, and his hands push under Six's skull, searching for injuries. When he speaks, his voice is shaky. "Yeah, somebody's hurt. Pretty banged up, in fact."

When Six goes to protest, he hurriedly continues, "But they'll be fine. C'mon, just talk to me. How 'bout that kiss? I doubt you're telling the truth."

"I _am_." Six insists, unable to really come up with anything better. Getting his thoughts to obey him and become coherent is getting_ really_ hard for some reason.

Kyntak laughs, but it's a high sound, worried and flighty. Six feels suspicion creep up on him along with the fatigue. "Kyntak, is anybody hurt-"

Kyntak looks like somebody slapped him, and his eyes fill with fear. "We've already had this conversation, Six." Six feels his head tip back. "Then why don't you help them instead of talking to me-"

"Because it _is_ you, and don't you _dare_ pass out on me again, _Agent Six of Hearts_—"

_Six blinked at her, confused. She needed to keep talking, he knew, which is the only reason he said, "Really?" Her lips curled up. "Yeah," she coughed. Her eyes flickered down to half-mast. "It sucks. I don't want to die never having kissed anyone."_

The sparkles are clouding his vision, and Six wonders if this is what the stars had looked like. They cover everything and he can't see through them, and his head pounds, and he is so, _so _tired….

_Her hand flicked up around his neck, yanking him off balance. He fell on top of her, and she shoved her lips against his. His mouth was filled with coppery blood and salty tears and suddenly, she stopped moving, her breath on his cheek shuddering, then stopping. Pulling back, Six closed those green, green eyes, and hears the footsteps of his team—_

Hands pull him up, and he's floating. Kyntak's voice fades in and out, sharp and hard and _fierce,_ like Six has never heard it. He tries to move, but now his iron bones have melted into water, his blood back to ice. Six is set on some kind of cloth, and it sways rhythmically. He feels like he isn't quite there, like he isn't really in his own body, and _God_, he's so_ tired,_ but then Kyntak's face swims into view, telling him, "It's okay, we got you, you can relax now.", and Six finally sinks into oblivion.

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**Many thanks to Cassey11 for reviewing!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Discliamer-The Lab is definitely Not Mine.**

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Kyntak is still.

The gun against his head is colder than ice.

He forces himself to be calm, to be _strong_, because he knows that he wouldn't even have to ask for Six to give it all up, to ruin this mission, for Kyntak's life. His brother is in front of him, weaponless, but his captor still stands behind him, using Kyntak as a shield.

In any other situation, Kyntak would have laughed at the guard's cowardice.

But now his twin is before him, defenseless as he could get, and while he knows Six can take care of himself, he can't be _that_ tough, right? After all, Kyntak has beaten him multiple times.

Not to mention his apparent fear of sharks.

The guard speaks up, voice shaking. "Stay where you are, Agent! Stay right there or I'll put a hole in this one's head!"

Six stands motionless.

"Good." The guard shouts, ignoring the fact that Six has done nothing. "Now back up_. Now_. Now or I'll kill your brother!"

It takes a moment for him to realize that he and Six are identical—it doesn't take a genius to work out they're twins.

"Kill him..." Six mutters, something low and heavy and _dark_ in his voice. "Kill him..." Six scoffs, and grins crookedly, baring every single one of his straight, white teeth. He looks past Kyntak, and even then, Kyntak feels a quick flash of fear at the look in his eyes, flat and hard, colder than ice.

At that moment, Kyntak sees a little of his brother, sees _just how_ shattered he is. Kyntak sees_ just_ _how _far he would go to protect his friends.

"If you kill him…" Six takes a step forward, and Kyntak hears the guard swallow, grip tightening. "If _you_ kill_ him_, then I _won't_ kill _you_." He takes another step forward. And another.

The anger-and smile-don't fade, and Kyntak knows that in fault of all his apparent weaknesses, Six can not only be deadly.

He can be _terrifying._

The guard drops his gun and runs away.

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**Thank you to _President Zaphod Beeblebrox_ for reviewing!**


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